


Currents Carry

by PlotlessWanderer



Category: Naruto
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Amputee, Attempted Murder, Gen, Impromptu adoption, of a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotlessWanderer/pseuds/PlotlessWanderer
Summary: The scent of blood was hot and sweet on her tongue as she peeled it open, saw weakly kicking legs, grasping fingers. Pale white. Corpse white. A naked little belly and lace-delicate ribs, shuddering desperately. A horrible gurgle.A little boy, she thought with crushing horror, eyes and throat stinging. A little boy, with a little hole in his tiny throat. Blood bubbled from it, air wheezed.Moaning low in her throat she tore open the water sealed pouched on her hip and tore her bandages into narrower strips. Shinomu had dropped to his belly, whimpering as the baby could not and nosing at sodden white hair.(Its hard to drown secrets, no matter how weighty they may be)
Relationships: Senju Tobirama & Hatake Characters
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	Currents Carry

**Author's Note:**

> TWs at bottom of chapter, but I'll just give a heads up here that there is some rather disturbing violence. No one dies, but if your'e concerned, scroll down to the bottom for some more detail before reading. Take care!

Of the many hunting and gathering duties she was assigned, Susume found fishing to be the least palatable. Oh, the fruits of such labour were well worth it, certainly. There was nothing quite like fat, succulent fish beaded with its own fatty juices, or hot fish head broth from a canteen on a cold morning watch. 

But it was cold, wet work that her lazy ass companion was able to sit out doing. So, thigh deep in icy water and peering angrily through the mist the morning sun drew from the wet bank, she spun the fishing spear in her hands around and around to point at the lump of fur and superiority lounging on a boulder. 

“You will get none of this, I hope you realize,” she hissed venomously, wishing she could screech instead, that high decimal she had perfected that sent all the other wolves running. 

With a doggy laugh and lolling tongue, Shinomu lifted his black nose back at her. ‘Liar,’ he whuffed. 

“Wah wah wah,” Susume mockingly muttered back, spearing another two fish in quick succession and tucking the twitching and slimy bodies into the net bag attached to her waist and floating out behind her. The bait crumbs were almost gone now and most of the fish were no longer keen to brave the scent of blood diffusing through the water. Still, eleven fish of a decent size were a nice haul. 

Tucking the spear into its harness at her back, she began slopping her way to the shore. 

‘Stranger,’ Shinomu growled and slowly rose into a crouch, eyes upstream. 

Susume crouched low into the water and followed his sight. 

Three figures, hazy in mist, dropped from the trees onto a ledge of stone jutting over the river. Masks, light armor. Two turned to watched their backs, the dull gleam of weapons in hand. 

Susume was a competent shinobi and due to that competence she knew when she was outclassed. By all rights she should be running now, fingers brushing Shinomu’s silver fur as she ran back to her pack, but… this was their territory. Their territory, their own home, where people rarely trespassed, much less armed shinobi.

The Hatake were a small clan. Too insignificant to be a threat or an ally, left mostly to their own devices. Their land was without resources or strategic value, which meant this incursion was all the more suspect. 

Silently, thankful for the wind drawing her scent away and the clamor of the water, Susume untied the net and snagged it on a branch underwater. If she survived this she would at least bring home food to soften the news of intruders. And if she didn’t, well…

Whoever retrieved her body would find the fish as well. 

Motioning Shinomu to stay in place and watch, she sunk beneath the water and swam upstream. 

She break the surface closer to the outcropping. Kneeling in a patch of reeds and holding kunai in both hands under the surface, she sharpened her ears and listening. 

“—-here?”

“As good a place as any,” said the one squatting at the edge of the outcropping, squinting into the churning water below. The plain brown cloak flawed around his body, edges just brushing the stone. 

“Are you sure this is…”

Sharp eyed, sharp motioned, the man spun cocked his head to face the speaker, the youngest among them. “What? Have something to say? do you doubt our mission?”

The boy shook his head, shoulders hunching. “No! No, I don’t.”

“Then keep your tongue pinned,” the man said, a long knife appearing in hand. “Lest I pin it for you.”

And then he reached into his cloak and pulled forth a bundle of canvas, bound closed with plain cord. Susume’s heart tripped in her stomach and he belly rolled. That shape… no.

Balancing the bundle on one hand, the man cocked his head, wincing as he looked at it. “Pity. Sorry, little lord, but its for the best.”

The knife flicked. Red seeped into the white canvas. 

With a lazy motion, he tossed it into the water, not even bothering to watch it sink before walking away.

Susume did not watch them leave. Slipping back under the surface, she drove herself back into the current, eyes wide and stinging, looking frantically in the murk for a flash of white. There was nothing and she spun, flailing, desperate, ignoring the cold dulled pain as she slammed into water smooth boulders and rebounded away. Nothing nothing nothing. 

Breaking the surface again, mouth tight with the precursor of bile, she prepared to descent again. 

‘Sister, come! Sister!’ came a familiar ruff, strained by unfamiliar fear. She turned towards it and saw Shinomu pulling himself up the bank, mud dragging him dawn and staining bright fur, a bundle dripping pink tinged water swinging gently from his teeth. 

“Shinomu!”

By the time she leapt ashore he had laid the bundle down in a patch of leaf litter, stepping in an anxious ring around it and whining, ears back and saliva dripping from a lolling tongue. Susume knocked him aside with her shoulder as she lunged to her knees, slicing through cords and praying. 

The scent of blood was hot and sweet on her tongue as she peeled it open, saw weakly kicking legs, grasping fingers. Pale white. Corpse white. A naked little belly and lace-delicate ribs, shuddering desperately. A horrible gurgle. 

A little boy, she thought with crushing horror, eyes and throat stinging. A little boy, with a little hole in his tiny throat. Blood bubbled from it, air wheezed. 

Moaning low in her throat she tore open the water sealed pouched on her hip and tore her bandages into narrower strips. Shinomu had dropped to his belly, whimpering as the baby could not and nosing at sodden white hair.

(White, a part of her mind screamed. White, like a new Hatake infant, soft like fur. Pale like winter. Gods, gods, was this one of theirs or was she going mad, was grief painting an even worse horror over her eyes?)

The bleeding was slowing as she gently wrapped that tiny throat and she did not know whether it was a good thing or not. Was the wound not so bad or was there simply no blood left to flow? He kicked weakly, so much more weaker than mere seconds ago.

“Baby, baby, shh. You are safe, safe.” She ripped the canvas (rough, something to transport detritus in, and yet the only thing to cover him. How could they? How dare they?) away and tucked the little, ice cold body into her shirt, skin against skin. She sent chakra circulating through her veins with a roar that set sweat prickling her skin and had her vision greying. “Love, precious, hold tight. All safe, sweet baby. Shh.”

With the rabbit quick, bird weak beat of his heart against hers, she ran for home. 

The creche was situated in the center of the compound. A depression that flowed into a cave, it was built of natural stone and was thus strong. The single entrance was large and gaping, kept open most days, the thick hide and wood doors rolled closed in the evening. 

The floor was padded from rough hewn wall to rough hewn wall with hides and blankets and pillows, so thickly covered the hard stone beneath could no longer be felt. Lanterns strung from the ceiling and mirrors angled to direct in sunlight kept it well lit and welcoming and warm. 

Clan children slept as often there as they would in their own homes. More frequently even, as parents and siblings rarely stayed in the compound for long. Every able body went to work. Selling their skills and their strength to support the clan. None were idle here.

Elder Umei had spent the last ten years as the creche mother. Ever since her last mission had taken her legs she had liven in the den at the heart of the Hatake village and happily watched over their young. She had never had the opportunity to be a mother herself. The harsh lifestyle of an active shinobi made a body unwelcoming of new life. She had lost every one she had desperately wished to nurture within months. Bled them away at the sides of roads or in trenches or dungeons. 

She had bled them away and bled herself just so this place would always be safe and full of life, even if she could not herself add to it. 

She smelled them before they came. Blood and panic and grief, the kind of grief that heralded the end of worlds. She had already ushered the children to the back of the creche, tucked behind the older children who still were too young to take up their parents profession but old enough to bare teeth and blades as a last defense for their family. Umei wrapped her arms around a wolf and had it pull her to the entrance, where she waited with her sword sitting naked on her thighs and senbon unfurled like claws in hand. 

She heard the faint sound of the rest of the village and the sentry calling out, moving to intercept. But in seconds the grief continued its approach at speed and soon young Susume, not so long ago gone from the creche herself, appeared. 

A small tuft of white peeked from her gaping shirt and the scent of blood wafted off her too warm skin.

“Baa-san,” she choked, eyes hollow with horror as she stumbled forward, crawling nearly into Umei’s lap. “Help us.”

The baby was small. Younger than any left in her care, and Umei sighed as she pulled him carefully into her arms. Hot, tiny puffs of air almost too faint to feel tickled her skin as she cupped a hand over his face. A heart that she could have crushed between two fingers fluttered under one palm. 

“What happened?”

“Shinobi,” Susume hissed with such venom Umei wondered if it melted her tongue on the way out. “Three shinobi at the river. They just—-“ the words shattered into a guttural, pained moan and she rocked forward, fists gripped in her hair. “They threw him into the river Baa-san. Like trash.”

Sending chakra delicately spooling through the baby, Umei felt weakness. The start of fever. Hunger, hunger like starvation. The wound was small, shallow “Sloppy.”

“What?”

“Sloppy work,” Umei continued blandly, adjusting the light burden in her arms to rest gently between her breasts, little heart fluttering, fluttering. “Which if good news for us. Fetch Kurai. He should be gathering mushrooms at the fallen pines at the foothills.”

Susume shook her head. “Others already went. He should be here soon.” Shaking fingers reached, twitched, hovered as though afraid to do harm. Umei snorted and used her free hand to jerked the girls down onto the little naked back. “He’ll live?”

“Nothing would die from such a shoddy strike,” Umei scoffed, using her grip on the girls wrist to rub her hand up and down the children's spine briskly. If the girl was going to keep burning chakra she might as well make use of it. “He’s a strong pup.”

The children in the creche crept closer, the two eldest still holding their knives but curiosity rapidly overtaking any hint of caution. The eldest of the bunch, Gou, recently orphaned as too many were these day, walked near enough to peer over Umei’s shoulder. His ferret sharp features twitched into something feral at the sight of the baby laboriously struggling to breath. 

“Who’s’it?” He muttered. For all he was closing in on seven years old, he spoke rarely and poorly. Likely due to the months he had spent inconsolable and only tolerating the company of his fathers wolves.

“We don’t know,” Umei replied blandly. She swept a finger through the babies gasping mouth, clearing it of muscus and congealing blood. He still had baby teeth in the process of growth, the gums swollen and warm to the touch. “Susume found him.”

“Means its hers?” Gou grunted and leaned over Umei to prod a limp little hand, startling when it twitched and closed weakly around his finger. 

Susume made an appalled sound and reared back. “No!”

“Finders keepers doesn’t really apply to babies.” When Gou only gave her a doubtful look, Umei flicked his forehead and sent the lot of them scattering into the back of the creche in search of soft blankets and clothes that might fit the child. 

Kurai appeared shortly, bounding over a woodshed, tattered brown haori flaring behind him like the wings of a startled turkey. Three bags were slung over his skinny shoulders, thumping unpleasantly with every awkward looking movement, and he was already withdrawing fistfuls of bandaging and a flask of sterile water as he skidded into place in front of her. 

“Is he still cold?” He demanded, not even glancing at Umei as she flipped her shirt open to give him access. Gou and his herd of reluctant charges hurried back and arranged the blankets into a little nest under Susume’s competent, quiet direction. Soon the baby was lying cupped into the center, Kurai doubled over him.

“Deep, but not too deep, thankfully,” he muttered, barely moving the bandages away. To take them off now might only restart the bleeding and Umei knew even another scant few drops might prove too much. “His tempeture is rising, at least. Could your tell if he breathed any water or swallowed it?”

Susume mutely shook her head and her fist clenched in the ruff of her wolf, sitting patient and panting at her side. Kurai grunted and went back to work. 

“He is terribly malnourished. Dehydrated also, though not as badly.” He lifted a tiny foot, flicked it with his finger and nodded when the baby jolted and squirmed in soundless distress. “At least he still has full feeling.”

“I imagine he’s unappreciative of such a blessing at the moment,” Umei noted wryly and soothed the little gasping whimpers with her fingers carding through dandelion soft hair. He twitched into the touch and, from so many long solitary missions herself, she could recognize a hunger for touch, even from one so young. It broke her heart as much as the hole in his throat and she leaned close enough for him to feel her breath against his head. 

“Hmm.” With smooth motions Kurai diapered and clothed the baby, frowning viciously at all the bruises and little scrapes. “If he survives the night I set odds on him recovering. Wait a few hours and then see if you can get some sugar water in him. If that stays down, move on to milk.”

Wilting were he sat, Kurai stared silently at the sluggish baby. Umei had settled onto her side in the dirt, curled around the makeshift nest. The sun had finally broken through the cloud cover and she was loath to removed the little one from the warmth. Though, with his pale, pale skin she would have to before long. 

“How old would you say he is?” She asked quietly while dragging her crooked knuckles down his face. 

Kurai tugged fretfully at his hair and shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have much experience with babies. Less than a year?”

Umei snorted. “You are so very helpful, Kurai, thank you.”

He snorted but knocked a knee companionably against hers. “Hey, I was just a an apothecaries assistant. I’m no physician, something you lot seemed to forget oh so conveniently.”

“What can we say? We know how to take advantage of talent.”

“Know how to take advantage of the unprepared.” Clapping his hand onto her thigh, carefully to avoid jostling the still sensitive stubs just below her knees, he rocked back to his feet and brush his filthy clothing down. 

“I’ll see to getting his feedings sorted. Ask someone to unearth a cradle or something. Need anything else?”

“No. Just come back to check on him when you’ve got a moment.”

Kurai snorted so enthusiastically Umei would be unsurprised if his brain wobbled like jelly, then stalked away. Which with his lack of grace was more a gangly lope. 

The clan was truly blessed to have him. A trained physician he was not, and he had never had the opportunity to complete his apprenticeship in the capitol before being lured into the woods by his wolfish bride. Seduced him with her sharp teeth and lusty laugh, he claimed. She had certainly been pleased to have him at all and never fussed about how it came about. 

She had died three years ago. By all rights, Kurai should have taken himself and his broken heart back to the capitol but he remained, year after year, and no one had ever suggested otherwise. 

“Susume,” Umei called softly. Already the baby was turning too pink and she angled over to cast him in shade, flicking a blanket over the parts of him her shadow could not cover. 

“Yeah?”

“Speak respectfully, you mangy pup.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now, report.”

And, like a good subordinate, Susume settled in and did. 

Umei hummed thoughtfully. Her hand was resting over the babes chest, keeping a keen watch for any hint of wheezing or the tell tale rattling of liquid in lungs. Miraculously, he seemed unimpeded. 

“Little lord, you say?” That made this several times more dangerous. Whether that comment was to the childs station in the Senju or that of some civilian nobility, the child must belong to someone more powerful than the Hatake could withstand. Umei could only hope it had been a sarcastic, evil barb and not a factually accurate title. 

“Yes.” Hand opening and closing, opening and closing, Susume glared hatefully at nothing. Umei wished the girl had not had to witness something so ugly, but perhaps it was a good thing. To have her eyes already open and her innocence shattered before stepping onto a battleground. “I think…”

When she trailed away, Umei gestured for her to continue. 

“I think they were Senju.”

Well, Umei thought as a hole seemed to open up in her belly, Fuck.

In a cradle that had held several dozen infants before him, the as yet unnamed boy lay quiet and strangely still, eyes drooping to slits and thin little hands opening and closely slowly beside his head. 

Gou had taken to sitting beside the cradle, one bare foot rocking it as he scowled at the contents. Umei had considered sending the boy away, making him play with his peers rather than this fragile stranger that could die at any moment. But Gou had been a difficult child from birth and if his usual sullen destructiveness was now being tempered by an odd fixation on their pale rescue Umei was not going to fight it.

“Why won’t he cry?” Gou broke the silence with his usual grunt. As though the words were being forced from him at kunai point and not because he was asking a question he alone wanted the answer to. 

Umei snorted and dragged herself closer, peering into the cradle herself and tucking a fingertip into the babes tiny palm, smiling when it closed tightly. Like a little carnivorous plant. 

“His throat is still swollen and sore. Kurai thinks he might not be able to speak well or vocalize much at all.” Which was unfortunate news to say the least. Muteness coupled with his near debilitating albinism were yet more burdens placed on their already strained clan. Taking in a foundling was difficult at the best of times, but this one might well wind up in some civilian town, given into the guardianship of those better suited to his care.

“Are we going to kill them?” 

Umei sighed. She should have known that was going to arise at some point. Even for a shinobi orphan Gou was bloody minded and vengeance bent. 

“Not likely. We don’t know who they are, much less who he is.”

“Susume said they were Senju,” Gou muttered. 

“She thought they might be Senju. And even if we knew for certain we could take no action.” The baby wheezed out a sigh and wriggled sleepily, hand clammy warm and loosening as he fought sleep. “It is no business of ours.”

“I think it is,” Gou said and slowed the movement of his foot. The cradle barely moved in response. 

“And thats why you don’t get to make any decisions in regard to to this,” Umei said brightly. 

Frankly she was looking forward to the return of anyone who could make a decision. The clan leaders and elders were all gone on missions of their own, using the last warmth of autumn to get as many jobs in as possible to pad their depleted coffers. Hatake were not naturally suited to agriculture, and any skill they could have built through learning the hard way was pointless to possess considering the nature of their territories. What field they had were fields of rock and hard clay. Most was hard hard earthed hills with trees or rock. At least the shrinking of their numbers meant it was more difficult to over hunt the area…

The baby was fast asleep, breathing deep and steady. She withdrew her hand and watched Gou clamber up and away, likely to find more watered milk or sugar water to give when the baby woke. 

Umei looked back into the cradle. He was a such a terrifyingly delicate little thing. Milk pale skin and hair like strands of crystal. Eyes a delicate shade of watery pink. With little of the round chubbiness infants usually possessed. He was a little glass blown skeleton with a porcelain veneer barely holding him together. 

She had thought he would die so many times now. Had woken up and been surprised to find him there, warm and breathing and cautiously looking at the world while it was still dim in the predawn. But that surprise was lessening with every morning. Despite the odds against him, he was stubbornly determined to live and Umei would respect that. 

“You just keeping spiting whoever saw fit to dismiss you, little one.”

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for child abuse, attempted drowning, a very bad man cutting a babies throat and just general unpleasantness all around. The baby lives, though! Not that it makes it much better....
> 
> I'm having a hard time writing anything lately, so I went back and spiffed up some of my old stuff and am posting it. So here it is, in all its angsty, disturbing glory. I'm a little unsure about it, because babies in peril hit very close to home for me personally. If anyone thinks I should put more comprehensive tags in or that this is too much in any way, please let me know.
> 
> Poor Tobirama... at least now he's amid a bunch of rabidly protective wolves and wolf affiliates! 
> 
> Have a good week, comment if inclined and stay warm!


End file.
